


No Touching

by semele



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 17:12:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's easier for Logan when there's no touching. They're supposed to be friends now, he and Veronica, just friends, like old times, and this is what Logan wants. He wants to get over Veronica. He can hold it together – more or less – as long as there's no touching, so he keeps his hands firmly in his pockets. It makes him look like a cocky asshole, which, good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Touching

**Author's Note:**

> _All I wanna do is talk, but seeing you fucks me up,_ prompted by stainofmylove.

Generally speaking, life sucks, but some things are easier than other.

(It's easier for Logan when there's no touching. They're supposed to be friends now, he and Veronica, just friends, like old times, and this is what Logan wants. He wants to get over Veronica. He can hold it together – more or less – as long as there's no touching, so he keeps his hands firmly in his pockets. It makes him look like a cocky asshole, which, good.)

“So, how was your summer? Did you fight evil and help the helpless?” 

Veronica gives him a look he doesn't understand, so Logan smiles like a movie star, just in case. 

(He smiles like a rat, fake, cheesy and all teeth.)

The rush of blood in his head is so loud he doesn't exactly hear what she says before she walks away.

***

Logan honestly wants to be friends, and this time he does everything right (or so he hopes). It's just that some habits are hard to break, trains of thought so familiar he falls into them automatically, lives ruined, blood shed, epic. Well, no harm done. It's all in his head anyway.

He knows he's being melodramatic, but it's not like he knows how to be anything else.

(It's not like he isn't just a little in love with this, with his heart beating faster when Veronica walks by him on her way to class, or with the music he hears in his head every time she speaks.)

“Dude, you so need to get laid,” announces Dick after a few days.

“Thank you for expertly solving my existential crisis.”

“A brunette,” continues Dick in his best tradition of purposefully ignoring every statement that includes a word longer than three syllables. “Normally I'd say go for ginger, but hey, bad memories. All I'm saying is: it burns.”

“Please, tell me you just used a fire metaphor,” says Logan, his eyes closed.

“A what?”

They get completely wasted, because Logan can't handle discussing Dick's dick while sober. Next morning, he spends fifteen painful minutes sitting in front of his coffee in the cafeteria, and apparently he's still a little bit drunk, because when he spots Veronica, he hears trumpets and drums, and maybe a little bit of a violin. 

He clutches his paper cup so hard it breaks, and Logan spills coffee all over his pants.

***

(The conversation they have in his head goes more or less like this:

“How are you, Veronica?” he asks with a sincere half-smile, no touching, of course. No touching. “Are you happy? Are you well?”

“I'll be fine,” she answers, avoiding his gaze, because she's Veronica. Something is wrong, and she isn't telling him, just like old times.

“I love you,” he says for himself, just to feel the buzz under his skin as he watches Veronica run away.)

***

In the next few weeks, Logan often dreams about his hands all over Veronica – always his hands on her, never the other way round. He touches her tenderly as she holds on to his face, the way she used to, and he apologizes for all the shit he pulled last year. Apologizes for the fights, for beating up Piz, and for sleeping with Madison; who knows, maybe he'd even apologize for Parker. Logan is very good at apologizing.

He isn't sure if this would work. It's hard to tell if she'd even let him finish, and fucking impossible to figure out if an epic apology would make things better, or worse. But dream-Logan doesn't care; very much like awake-Logan, he finds some pleasure in groveling. So he talks, he whispers, begs, and chokes, words about love and words about longing.

(Every time he has this dream, they're fully dressed, which is why he never tells Dick.)

***

Veronica comes to a Halloween party dressed up as a hooker, which is how Logan knows she's tailing someone.

“Who's the client?” he asks, because he can't resist a bad pun.

He can actually see struggle on her face as she tries to decide if pulling out her pet paralyzer is worth blowing her cover. And they say romance is dead.

“No, seriously, Veronica,” he says before she can make up her mind. “What's the case this time? Who are you trying to nail?”

“The usual. A cheating boyfriend,” she answers, and Logan feels his pulse speed up as he realizes she's lying.

The drama queen in him sees a perfect opportunity to say: “I will never hurt you again,” but he lets it pass, watches it slide right by him in a melodramatic fashion.

She doesn't have proof that it's him who keeps an eye on her for the rest of the night, and beats up the guy who looked like he was trying to attack her. But it's not like she needs proof.

***

“You can't do this anymore!” she yells at him the very next day. “Logan, this is serious, you can't follow me around and attack people!”

“I was worried about you! The guy was twice his size!”

“Most guys are twice my size! I can take care of myself, it's not your job to protect me!”

“For fuck's sake, Veronica, I'm your friend! And I worry, okay? So forgive me for not getting a personality transplant!” he barks and tries to walk away, spins around and almost makes the first step.

“Logan!”

He sees it in slow motion, Veronica's hand hovering over his arm before it drops on it, skin on skin, and, as the music swells in his head, he knows he has a split second to make another step and get out of her reach.

(Not that he ever would.)


End file.
